544 HEMIPTERA. 



even on the extreme summit of Mount "Washington, in 

 Augu ;t. 



Dr. Shinier in his "Notes" on the chinch bug, says that it 

 "attained the maximum of its development in the summer of 

 1864, in the extensive wheat and corn fields of the valle}* of the 

 Mississippi ; and in that single year three-fourths of the wheat 

 and one-half of the corn crop were destroyed throughout many 

 extensive districts, comprising almost the entire North-west, 

 with an estimated loss of more than one hundred millions of 

 dollars in the currency that then prevailed," while Mr. Walsh 

 estimates the loss, from the ravages of this insect in Illinois 

 alone, in 1850, to have been four millions of dollars. 



In the summer of 18G5, the progenj^ of the broods of the 

 preceding year were almost entirely swept off by an epidemic 

 disease, so few being left that on the 22d of August, Dr. 

 Shinier found it "almost impossible to find even a few cabinet 

 specimens of chinch bugs alive" where they were so abundant 

 the year before. "During the summer of 1866 the chinch bugs 

 were very scarce in all the early spring, and up to near the 

 harvest I was not able, with the most diligent search, to find 

 one. At harvest I did succeed in finding a few in some locali- 

 ties." "This disease among the chinch bugs was associated 



O ~ 



with the long-continued wet, cloudy, cool weather that pre- 

 vailed during a greater portion of the period of their develop- 

 ment, and doubtless was in a measure produced by deficient 

 light, heat and electricity, combined with an excessive humidity 

 of the atmosphere." In 1868 it again, according to the Edi- 

 tors of the "American Entomologist," "did considerable dam- 

 age in certain counties in Southern Illinois and especially 

 in South-west Missouri." Fig. 548 represents the AnlJwcoris 

 insidiosiis Say, called the False Chinch bug ; it is often mis- 

 taken for the chinch buir, with which it is sometimes found 



O ' 



associated. 



In the "Coreidfe" the scutellum is still of the usual size; 

 the antenme arc four-jointed ; while the basal joint of the beak 

 is generally the longest. 



Westwood states that the Corci/s marginatus of Europe "in 

 flight makes a humming noise as loud as the hive bee," and 

 the eggs of this species have been observed by Audouin to be 



